


God Only Knows

by writedeku



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, BUT IT DOES HAPPEN, Fluff, IT IS NOT EXPLICIT, M/M, NAPOLEON GETS SOMEWHAT MOLESTED, Post-Canon, illya becomes protective my tol angry penguin, napollya trash thats what i am, they look like they could kill each other and they actually do try sometimes, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 03:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5231348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writedeku/pseuds/writedeku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm going to kill Sanders," he mutters, and the resulting chuckle from Napoleon speaks volumes. "I will," Illya says louder. "Damn capitalist pigs."</p><p>Napoleon takes a long sip before pouring the rest over his stitches, hissing at the pain, nails leaving crescent moons in his palm. </p><p>Illya folds his arms across his chest and glares at nowhere in particular. "I don't like it."</p><p>"I'm touched," Napoleon replies as he starts to tape a plastic sheet over his wound with medical tape. "But you've got to accept it. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to scrub Julian Chastain from my body."</p><p>In which Napoleon learns a little something about sharing and Illya realises that American songs aren't that bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Only Knows

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys, my attempt at these two spy husbands who have ruined my life :(((  
> curse you armie hammer and your tallness
> 
> WARNING  
> THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS BRIEF SEXUAL MOLESTATION WHICH NAPOLEON SOLO DOES NOT AGREE TO AT ALL. IT IS BRIEF, BUT IT WILL BE DISCUSSED, AS WELL AS ITS IMPACT. I DID NOT SELECT RAPE/NON-CON BECAUSE IT WAS TOO SHORT AND NOT THAT DETAILED. LIKE REALLY NOT DETAILED. HOWEVER THE IMPACT OF THIS ON NAPOLEON WILL BE ADDRESSED BY MY OVERLY PROTECTIVE TALL PENGUIN. THERE IS A SORT OF HAPPY ENDING. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Napoleon's lungs hurt as he runs, choking and coughing, the smoke creeping into his lungs and his eyes, burning as much as the fire did.Illya is next to him, his long legs stretching out in front of Napoleon, getting him several steps ahead. This was something which Napoleon found wholly unfair, and he damned Illya and his damn legs to Hell. The fire is getting dangerously close. Dazedly, he smells singed hair and realised that it is himself, and that thought causes him to run faster, chest heaving and vision blurring. 

Damn Illya and his loose trigger finger, Napoleon thinks viciously. I am never going on a mission with him ever again. 

Sweat falls into his eyes and he runs blindly, trusting only the sound of Illya's footsteps to know when to stop- he can't spare even a moment to take a breath. He's still running when there's a shout, and he's jerked roughly back. Napoleon yelps as he falls rather ungracefully on top of Illya, crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs, the ground slick with the spray of water from the sprinkler system. 

There's a snarl and Illya's immediately standing upright, glaring at Napoleon. "Watch where you're going," he growls, folding his arms across his chest. "I will leave you here if I have to." 

Napoleon winces as he gets to his feet, putting a hand over his heart in mock hurt. "Why did you stop?"

Illya looks at him as if he's the stupidest person on the planet- a look which he generously gives to everyone, and Napoleon has learnt not to take it personally. "Fire all around," he says, defeated, Russian accent growing thicker. "No exit."

Napoleon surveys their surroundings. They're in a room, so far untouched by the fire. No windows- one door. From the way the outside sounded, they were surrounded by a circle of fire, the closet flames scorching the metal of the door. The concrete of the building was collapsing, and the sprinkler system was doing anything but helping to control the blaze. Napoleon Solo looks into Hell and blames it on Illya. "This is your fault."

Illya doesn't even try to rebuke it; he sighs instead and looks around, turning things over with his gun before angrily breaking things at random. The shatter of a glass vase is especially loud in the enclosed room, and he winces. 

Napoleon rubs his face and sits down on a chair, clasping his hands together. Illya looks at him as if he's gone mad. "What are you doing?" He asks, incredulously, as the roof overhead cracks alarmingly. 

"Thinking."

"Thinking?"

"You should try it sometime, Peril," Napoleon says, one eyebrow raised before his blue eyes light up with the sort crazed delight you would associate a mad scientist and his lips pull back in a grisly smile. The grime from the fire and their mission made his eyes stand out particularly well, like the only stars on a dark night. Illya knows that look, he's seen it before. He grins in satisfaction and looks at Napoleon expectantly. 

* * *

"Hold still," Gaby says, rubbing the ointment onto Napoleon's back. "You're pretty badly burned."

Napoleon grits his teeth against the sting and glares at the Russian sitting across from him, who didn't even have the decency to look ashamed. "I wouldn't be if someone didn't try to shoot the deputy."

Illya rubs the ointment onto his arms and shrugs. "He was annoying. I did everyone service."

Napoleon wants to smack that nonchalant face off. Not because he'd been burned- it happened quite a lot in his lifetime, but because Illya had botched their mission. "We didn't get the plans," he says, and winces as Gaby presses harder. "If you wanted to shoot the deputy, at least aim properly, not hit the wall. Honestly, and you're considered KGB's best?"

Illya holds up his gun and dumps it on the table, glowering at it. It's a Nock Volley, old, ugly and frankly useless. Napoleon didn't even know why they were still in production. The fact that Illya was able to use it without breaking his shoulder from the recoil was already admirable in itself. "Guard used it," Illya says, picking it back up and twisting the barrel into a knot. Napoleon fought the urge to whistle. "Effective, but fire started from muzzle blast. At least now no one has plans. That's good enough."

Gaby pats his shoulder when she's done with the ointment and gathers their ruined clothes into a pile. Illya takes his ugly floppy cap and sticks it resolutely on his head, much Napoleon's dismay. "I'm going out."

"My suit doesn't make it out of the fire, neither does my shoes, but that thing does?" Napoleon mutters, aghast, and to his surprise Illya hears him. The change is immediate. Illya stands upright, whole body stiffening, before abruptly turning around and looking down at Napoleon, blue eyes dilating. 

Illya considers Napoleon for a while, like a predator circling his prey, deciding if it was worth the effort. As for Napoleon, shirtless and unarmed, he suddenly feels vulnerable, exposed, but instead of feeling scared he felt reckless, adrift upon a sea of daring.

Raising your head to look up at someone is not regarded as the standard submissive posture, but should be. In the spy world- hell, even as a thief, raising your head at someone wasn't defiance- it was submission- and the good ones knew that. Raising your head means you bare your throat. You make it easy for the other person to kill you if they wanted to. 

Napoleon knew that, yet he tips his head back and smiles in the way he knew drove Illya mad, all pointed teeth and no warmth.

There's a moment of silence as the two take in each other. Illya moves first, taking off his cap in slow, deliberate movements. Napoleon notices that his eyes are dark with an unidentifiable emotion, that his breath is coming in short bursts, that his hands are clenched tight at his sides. Illya looks like a wolf on a hunt, taut muscles and startling eyes, and a barrage of lust crashes upon Napoleon like waves upon a shore. 

He fights it down, trapping it in a coffin and burning it, too focused on what Illya's going to do next. His hands clench and unclench on the folds of his cap, before suddenly, abruptly; he leans forward and puts the hat on Napoleon's head, where surprisingly, it fit. 

That was unexpected. 

Illya is out the door before he has a chance to blink. 

He keeps the hat.

* * *

 "Of course they have back-ups," Solo grumbles, folding his arms and staring at the table. "Who doesn't?"

Waverly points to a tiny red spot on the map. "We believe that's where they're keeping the back-up of the Weapons project. Your objective is to infiltrate their base and extricate those plans, as well as their chief weapons maker, Doctor Julian Chastain. Alive please, Chastain does have some information that could be valuable in tracking other arms dealers across the globe."

 Illya spares a second to glance over at Solo. As usual, he has his hands in the pocket of his tailored suit, a seemingly uncaring expression dancing about on his face. But his eyes- oh, his eyes were alive with the fire of adventure. Solo might not be a very good spy, due to his rather annoying spirit of curiosity, but he was a madman, desperate for the rush of the battle and the thrill of death. 

Waverly looks up at the both of them, frowning at Illya, and looking the very picture of a disappointed father, and says, "Try not to set the building on fire, Kuryakin. It was luck that got you out of the other one."

Illya glowers at him, and opens his mouth- but he is interrupted by Solo, who looks at Waverly sideways and asks, "Are you going to be there?"

Waverly takes a second to process the question before letting out several barks of laughter- the kind that Illya would describe as the rather pained sort of laughing. "God, no. I'm going to be in Switzerland, sipping tea and eating chocolate. Good day, gentlemen." 

Illya expected nothing less, but a flash of annoyance flickers across Solo's face. He knows that flicker- God knows how many times it's been directed at him, and distantly he wonders why Solo would be angry at Waverly. "Your weapons are in the duffel on the bed," Waverley adds as he steps out the door. "These ones won't start a fire, I assure you."

Illya doesn't think he'll ever let it go, and Solo lets out a small snort of laughter and bends to unzip the bag. 

He is disappointed almost immediately. He picks one up and dangles it between two fingers, deciding he'd rather have the Nock Volley than the American M16. 

"Something wrong, Peril?" Solo asks, eyes flicking up and down. Of course Solo would notice his disdain. Solo notices everything. 

He flicks the gun onto the bed and huffs. "American M16."

Solo nods, unsure of where he's going with this. "I am aware of the make of the gun, Peril. What's so bad about it? It's got precision-"

Illya snorts. "Precision is good, yes, but not when jammed."

"Well, it doesn't always jam."

"It might."

"It might not."

"I'm getting better gun from KGB safehouse. Do you want one?"

A dim fire of satisfaction burns within Napoleon's gut as he considers what Illya's just asked him. The fact that Illya even considered Napoleon good enough to be given a KGB weapon was touching enough, but that he asked if he wanted one? Napoleon was going leaps and bounds in making Illya see teamwork. 

"I'm good," Solo says as he stuffs a clip of ammunition into pockets of his pants. "I think it'll do fine."

"Your funeral," Illya shrugs and turns to leave- not before jamming yet another ugly floppy hat into his head. 

Napoleon will never understand where Illya finds these things. Illegal, ugly hat dealers stationed under bridges? Istanbul would have a lot of those, he presumed. "I have to ask. Why do you have another one of those hats? How many do you carry around?"

"This one is new," Illya says, stiffly. "I found it. In shop."

"No shop would sell that."

"Well, it did."

"We should burn it down for the sake of humanity." 

"Do not."

"Why not? 

"Because I'll break all your fingers if you do," Illya deadpans. "Then I'll move on to your toes."

"You always know how to make a heart melt, Peril."

* * *

 "You should be here, Peril," Napoleon mutters into the small radio. "Aren't we a team?"

"If you don't shut up, Cowboy, I will personally disembowel you," Illya hisses back. "We have better chance if we go in from both exits."

"Teamwork," Napoleon offers back, slightly intimidated by the place their objective was kept in. 

"We are not a team."

Napoleon sighs into the radio. "There's no need to be rude about it."

The building where the plans were kept, it turns out, was a cave. An honest to gods cave, deep within one of the mountains. Two exits, in and out, one on either side of the mountain. 

Napoleon watches from the cover of the trees, slightly annoyed at this unforeseen outcome. He'd expected a campsite, a lab, a secret air-conditioned office building, but a cave? 

Inside that cave were sensitive plans to a whole scheme of military plans that the British had been planning, including missile launch codes, access to secure military bases and their plans for the secret service- namely, the double 0 project. 

Illya was going in by the other side, so Napoleon waited for a truck to come by before sneaking on during the authorisation. 

The cave is massive. The interior is all metal, and Napoleon's footsteps echo rather eerily along the floor. The whole place is empty, however, and alarms that haven't gone off in ages ring loudly in his head. The last time he heard those bells was when he walked into the Acropolis museum- and got caught. Napoleon has since learnt to trust his instincts. 

He scrabbles for the radio pinned to his belt, suddenly and inexplicably concerned for the Russian entering from the other door. "Peril?" He hisses as he darts through an open door, gun up and ready. "Peril, it's a trap."

"You sure?" Illya's voice crackles back, and strangely Napoleon has never been this relieved to hear anyone, ever. "I am close to files."

"Trust me," Napoleon says, warily eyeing the dark room, before deciding it not worth his skin. Something clanks in the back of the room and he hurriedly turns to go out. There's no reply. "Illya?"

"Oh, so you remember my-" the voice is suddenly cut off, and the line is filled with static. Napoleon's suddenly so worried he thinks he'll spontaneously combust. "Illya!"

He's walking to the door- then he's running, hurried footsteps that echo loudly throughout the room,  _got to get to Illya, got to get to Illya- I can't lose another._

There's a sudden thud that has him stopping as quickly as he started, skidding across the floor. He turns around and fires, braces himself for the recoil and the sound- but there's only empty clicking. 

The man standing across from him raises an eyebrow and folds his arms across his chest. 

"Fuck."

* * *

 The first thing Illya sees when he comes to is Solo sitting opposite him, hands and feet tied to the metal chair with thin leather straps. His whole body tenses- and finds he's in the same position, except his hands are tied behind his back. He struggles for a moment before giving up. 

Behind his shirt, attached to the small of his back, is a small knife. He begins to wiggle it out with his hands, and as he does, he wonders how he was knocked out. His turtleneck is on the table in front of him, leaving him only in a thin white shirt. 

Vaguely, he remembers a sort of gas filling the room he was in, but just as he got a decent picture the person across the table from him groans and rolls his head, breaking his focus. There's blood running down the side of his face, so obviously the gas method wasn't used on him.

"Where are we?"

Illya rolls his shoulders, the knife looser in its sheath. "Somewhere in the compound. How were you taken?"

Solo snorts gently, hands and feet tensing, trying to break out of the straps. "Don't you dare say I told you so."

Illya feels slightly satisfied as the meaning of his words sink in, but it's broken by an undercurrent of worry and self-preservation. "I told you so."

Solo snorts again, just as the metal doors open with a hiss, and a man walks in. 

The man has got dark curly brown hair that hangs past his shoulders, and deep, dark eyes, like a feral animal. He has an angular face and broad shoulders, but he isn't very tall. "Boys," the feral thing simpers, smiling without warmth. "How lovely."

Illya notes a French accent and realises this is Julian Chastain, the doctor they were sent to recover. To his mild annoyance and surprise, Julian ignores Illya completely, instead moving over to Napoleon and sitting none too gently on his lap. 

He hears a pop, pop, pop, sound and realises that Julian is undoing the buttons on Solo's shirt and the animal within bellows, his vision tinged with red. The knife is now loose in his hands, and he begins to saw. 

The beast roars inside him, louder with every button being undone, and he can feel the beat of the anger that he could never shake. It chases him around in circles, but sometimes it catches up. This time the rage has him by the short and curly. 

There is a ripping sound, and the shirt is torn from Solo, leaving him bare-chested in the cool air of the cave. 

"Normally I would ask you to buy me a drink first," Solo says mildly, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that Julian's hands are now running up and down his chest. "But we can skip that, Julian."

Julian laughs, a high, ear piercing sound that  _hurts_. "Have you ever had a man, Napoleon?"

Illya can't see Solo's face but he imagines it to be filled with daring nerve and cold steel. It Julian had known Solo more, he would see the fire in his eyes, the steely determination. "I can't count the number on both hands."

Illya doesn't know if he's lying, but somehow the idea of Solo being with men doesn't sound very unthinkable. 

Julian makes a delighted sound, throwing his head back. "Oh, mon amour. You say the wickedest things."

"Why're you doing this?" Solo asks, and Illya notes the undercurrent in his voice. Solo doesn't always kill- it's not his style, but when he gets the iron in his voice Illya knows a storm is coming. 

"You are very pretty," and here Julian's voice drops to stage-whisper. "Be a shame to kill you before...well."

Napoleon groans slightly, but it somehow manages to still be seductive. "There were no back-ups, were there?"

"No," comes Julian's high voice. "Just me."

There is a flash of silver, and Illya sucks in a breath as he realises Julian has drawn a knife. A swish through the air and then Napoleon has made a gasp- Illya's heard that gasp before, it's his that really hurt but I'm not going to show how much it really hurt gasp. 

Illya doesn't think he's ever been this furious. His mother glances across his eyes, turned to a prostitute for the sake of keeping them alive- no one should be forced to partake in activities they do not want to do. No one, not even the infinitely infuriating Napoleon Solo, who makes fun of his hats and insults him every day. 

There's a small sound as the knife finishes with the leather straps. Solo looks over Julian's shoulder to see Illya bending down to unbuckle the ones on his feet. Words pass through them, an unspoken knowing, before Solo quickly jerks up with his hips. 

Julian makes a filthy sound that does not sound anything near seductive and Illya wants to scrub it from his ears and his memory, but it covers the sound of the clasps undoing. 

The wolf within rears his head, straight backed and chin lifted. He feels the rage swirling within him, a whirlpool of emotion, and he gives into it. Everything goes sort of red as he walks over to Julian and flings him against the wall, the satisfying crack sounding throughout the room. He hears footsteps just outside and knows the army's coming in, but doesn't really care.

 He's dancing to a different beat, a set of drums, crying out for blood, more blood, and he follows that rhythm, lightly landing next to Julian and breaking his neck.

He's just unclasped Solo's restraints when the door hisses open, and a hail of gunfire rains down on them. 

Solo kicks the table up and the metal offers a brief respite from the bullets, but it won't last long. "They need to stop shooting," Solo mutters, staring at the ground, fingers scrabbling in the dirt. 

"You don't say."

Solo rolls his eyes, managing to perfect the expression of total exasperation even when missing his shirt and blood slowly trickling down the side of his face and his chest. "No, the ground. It's not metal, it's cracking. It's unstable. If they don't stop shooting, it'll cave in."

Illya is suddenly ten times more worried. "It won't cave in," he says, and then he's falling through air and everything's dark, the light of the cave retreating from view. 

He hits the water beneath hard, forcing all the air from his lungs and sinking beneath the waves before all the enforced training kicks in and he's kicking in the direction he hopes is up- but he doesn't make it and then he's sinking again, faster and harder, choking and coughing and breathing in water. 

Everything starts to go a deeper sort of black, the kind that spoke of nothingness, no anger, no hatred, just nothing, and Illya sort of welcomes it. He's pulling it toward him when a hand lands on his arm and is pulling him, up up up, and they break surface, the darkness chased away and replaced by a deep blue. Solo, he realises dazedly, choking up the water he's swallowed. Of course. 

"Okay," Solo starts, once they've regained their breath and moved away from the opening, deeper into the new cavern that recently opened up. "Where are we now?"

"Underground lake," Illya says. "Lucky or we would be dead."

Illya is soaking wet, and this far below the surface it's very cold, but for him it was manageable. He walks around blindly for a while, Solo nursing a bad head and a sprained leg. Blood is still mingling with the water on his skin from the knife Julian pulled. Tripping over something, Illya realises it's his turtleneck that was on the table, that somehow, miraculously, didn't fall into the lake but landed on the edges of it. 

He jogs back to Solo, the lake still lit up with the light of the metal cave above- the people hadn't followed them down. He sits next to Solo and realises he's shivering, clenching his teeth together and rubbing his hands up and down his arms. "You're cold."

Solo shakes his head, painfully standing upright. "I'm fine."

Illya makes a growling sort of noise in the back of his throat, passing his turtleneck over to Solo with a stern glance and a "put this on right now."

Solo glares at it as if it had personally slaughtered his grandmother. "Aren't you cold?"

"Russian winter is worse," Illya assures him, even though he's really cold and would actually like that turtleneck. He wonders why he's even giving it to Solo, who has made it his goal in life to push every button Illya has, and then some. "And you have no shirt."

Solo puts on the turtleneck, and it's too tight at the shoulders but too long at the sleeves and overall he looks somewhat ridiculous, but Illya tactically refrains from saying anything. Hell hath no fury like an American with an expensive taste being forced to wear a turtleneck. "Let's find a way out," Solo mutters, taking a step before falling very ungracefully. 

It was thanks to Illya's reflexes that Solo didn't smash straight into the floor. "You hold on my shoulder," Illya says. "Or we'll never get anywhere."

Even in the semi-darkness, he can feel Solo glower at him and grins. 

After walking for around ten minutes, one hand on the wall, he discovers a cave in similar to what happened earlier, and moving several rocks he clears a pathway. Sunlight pools into the cavern, making what had been the stuff of nightmares not so frightening anymore. 

"Thank God," Solo mutters, standing in the light, Illya remaining behind, shrouded in the shadows. "Freaking hallelujah."

* * *

 "You need stitches," Illya frowns as he inspects the wound in a KGB safehouse. "Wound is quite deep."

Napoleon groans as he tilts his head back. "I'm not going to a hospital," he says, warily sizing Illya up. "You good with a needle?"

Illya gives him a look to end all looks and begins to rummage around in the first aid kit. He notices Illya's jittery hands and tense posture, and raises an eyebrow. "You okay there?"

Illya's answer is angrily slamming the thread down onto the table and looking anywhere but Napoleon's face. He turns back to the first aid kit to find the needle.

Napoleon gives it five seconds before asking again. "Peril?"

Illya holds up a bottle of gin and says sternly, "don't move." He barely gives Napoleon a second to brace himself before he upturns the bottle, sterilising the wound in the crudest way possible. Napoleon sucks in a breath and grinds through clenched teeth, "no medicinal oil?"

Illya frowns sympathetically. "No."

It stings, the needle moving in and out of his skin, but his head is still throbbing slightly and his leg screams whenever he shifts his weight, so he barely notices it. 

He focuses instead on Illya's hands, scarred and calloused, and hiding superhuman amounts of strength, but as he is learning now, gentle if need be. Thirty seconds into it, Illya finally asks, scowling at the wound, "why did you let him do it?"

"Do what?"

"Touch you like that," Illya bites out, as if ashamed he's even asking. "The left hand buckle was not properly done up. It was loose. You could've broken it."

Solo rolls his shoulders, a gesture that has Illya hissing and slapping his shoulder. "If I were to get loose, we still had to go through a metal door to get out, Peril. Did you have a better idea?"

Illya nods tersely. "Yes. Kill the...as you Americans say, bastard."

Napoleon actually chuckles at that, even as Illya finishes up with the stitches, actually impressed at Illya's deftness. "He was disgusting though, wasn't he? He ripped a perfectly good shirt."

Illya starts, his hands still barely grazing Napoleon's chest. "That's what you're angry about?"

Napoleon smiles lazily. "I was quite fond of that shirt."

Illya steps away from him as if he's a hot brand. "You're very unconcerned."

Napoleon shrugs as he stands, lurching forward slightly. He pulls on a shirt but leaves it unbuttoned. "Your main weapon, Peril, is your anger."

When Illya starts to get huffy, Napoleon holds up a placating hand. "Don't take it the wrong way. You're a weapon that has a license to kill and can actually do it extremely well. Me, well," he begins to fix himself a triple vodka. "I don't like to kill people. It's not my kind of move. My main weapon is my body, and I'm fine with that."

Napoleon grins bitterly. "Besides, it won't be the first time I've had to lie down with someone and call it patriotism."

"So you're fine with people using you for...indecent things?""

Napoleon actually looks at him when he says that, and Illya sees for the first time eyes like shattered glass, dimmed and dulled, like someone had poured water over his fire. "No, I'm not," he says, as if coming to a realisation. "I'm really not. But it's my job."

Illya can feel the dull throb of the animal inside, looking Napoleon as if he's at once heroic and sick. "I'm going to kill Sanders," he mutters, and the resulting chuckle from Napoleon speaks volumes. "I will," Illya says louder. "Damn capitalist pigs."

Napoleon takes a long sip before pouring the rest over his stitches, hissing at the pain, nails leaving crescent moons in his palm. 

Illya folds his arms across his chest and glares at nowhere in particular. "I don't like it."

"I'm touched," Napoleon replies as he starts to tape a plastic sheet over his wound with medical tape. "But you've got to accept it. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to scrub Julian Chastain from my body."

* * *

 They're sitting in the hotel, Illya soundly kicking Solo's ass at chess. Gaby sits across from them, offering unhelpful tips in between talking to Waverly on the phone. "Waverly says to ask what happened to Julian."

Illya carefully notes the way Solo is completely tensed up. "Tell him that Julian was dead end," Illya offers, before moving his bishop. 

Gaby raises an eyebrow and repeats this to Waverly. "Bloody hell," he says, his voice tinny from the long distance call. "He killed him."

Gaby picks up the phone and moves to the balcony. At evening time, the temperatures in Istanbul were dropping, and Gaby shivered in the cold. "Julian did sexually assault Solo," Gaby says, careful to keep her voice from being overheard. "Illya reacted accordingly. 

There's a small sound over the phone, before Waverly replies, "Solo should be used to that."

Inside, Illya checkmates Solo again, the third time tonight. He is understandably upset. "You're cheating," he accuses, but Illya holds both palms open and smirks. 

"I'm not the thief in the team, Cowboy." 

Solo raises an eyebrow, a gesture he is overly fond of and replies dryly, "Oh, so now we're a team?"

Illya starts, before sinking back into his usual scowl. "You want to play again?"

Solo stares glumly at the board. "You going to let me win?"

Illya grins. "No."

"Ah, what the hell," he replies, standing up instead and moving over to the drinks. "You want one?"

Illya shakes his head, before moving the pieces back to their original place. Napoleon somehow notices his fingers, long like a pianist. He wonders if Illya plays the piano and eyes the piano sitting inconspicuously in the middle of the room. "I don't drink."

Napoleon rolls his shoulders, the scotch taking away some of the hard lines from his face. "You're from Russia? And you don't drink? Impossible."

Illya scoffs at that, moving his pawn to H4. "Entirely possible. Alcohol takes away alertness."

Solo sinks languidly into the chair opposite him and moves his pawn to D5. "That's the point."

Illya mutters something into the board as he contemplates Solo's move. 

"What was that?" Solo returns, wondering how long you can puzzle over one chess move. "Didn't catch it."

Illya looks up at him, eyes burning a hole through the chair he was sitting on. "Can't hold the liquor," Illya says, moving his knight. "End up looking stupid."

Solo actually grins at that, his eyes crinkling at the corner, making his whole face look more comely. In the dying sunlight, stretched out across a chair in a tangle of limbs and messy hair, he looks like a marble statue. 

Illya had once read a Greek myth about a sculptor, who had scorned the company of women. He found joy only in his art, creating the most exquisite and life-like statues in the country. His deep devotion to his art spared him no time to admire the beauty of women. In fact, he so condemned their company that he vowed never to marry.

One day, he carved an ivory statue of a woman that was so gentle and beautiful that he fell in love with it. He named her Galatea, and gave her the most expensive gifts and draped her in the finest of cloth. He even kissed her, so enchanted was he with his creation, and he deeply desired for Galatea to be his wife. But she was unattainable, a statue that merely looked on and smiled, remote and unaffected by the passing of time, and so he fell into despair.

On the day of the festival of the goddess of love, Aphrodite, he made his offerings to her and quietly, he wished for his statue to come alive and become real. Aphrodite, on hearing his pleas, granted him his wish. When he came home and held his statue, the ivory turning warm beneath his hands, the cold eyes suddenly coming alive. From a man who so disliked the idea of marriage, he became a father and a husband.

Illya never understood it. How could someone love something that showed none in return, didn’t laugh or smile or say anything- something that was not even warm to the touch? Yet looking at Napoleon as the red sun frames his face, all hard angles and freezing eyes, he could almost believe it.

* * *

They’re sitting in a small Ford Falcon car, Illya struggling to find space for his legs. This time, they’re here because Waverly wanted to discuss the epically failed Julian Chastain mission with them personally, and he didn’t trust the hotel. He also didn’t trust the KGB safehouse, the CIA safehouse and surprisingly, the MI6 safehouse, so they were meeting along the banks of the Bosphorus, the Istanbul strait.

They drive in silence for a while, before Napoleon tires of the quiet and puts on the radio.

There’s a moment of talking on the radio, mumbled jibberish Illya can’t understand, but then it launches into a song that Illya has heard play countless times.

_I may not always love you_

Napoleon looks at the radio in surprise, before letting the melody wash over him, humming along slightly.

_But long as there are stars above you_

“You’re in good mood, considering,” Illya scowls.

Napoleon smiles at him, nothing like the smiles he was performing on That Day. These ones encouraged another. “Waverly can’t tell me anything I haven’t already told myself,” he says. “C’mon, smile a little, Peril.” He waggles his eyebrows at Illya.

Illya scowls at him harder and Napoleon sighs.  “ _God only knows what I’d be without you_ ,” he sings, and Illya is quite surprised he can actually carry a tune- and he also tries to pretend that he hadn’t actually realised  Napoleon was singing along, and was somehow going to fully accept Napoleon saying God only knows what he’d be without him. His face feels hot.

“ _If you should ever leave me_ ,” Napoleon goes on, tapping his fingers to the beat. “ _Though life will still go on, believe me._ ”

Illya suddenly feels a strange compulsion to finish the sentence, and to his surprise- the wolf within actually ducks his head- he does, though not as loudly as Napoleon. “ _The world could show nothing to me, so what good would living do me_.”

Illya can practically feel Napoleon’s surprise, it radiates out from him and he can feel Napoleon’s stare boring holes into his face. “Eyes on road,” he snarls, and Napoleon jerks his gaze back.

“ _God only knows what I’d be without you_ ,” Napoleon continues, although it’s more hesitant now, and the tone ends on a question mark.

Illya steels his nerves and echoes the line. “ _God only knows what I’d be without you.”_

Napoleon’s still staring at him when there’s a knock on the car window, and Waverly’s face is pressed right up to the glass.

“You were supposed to extract Chastain not kill him,” Waverly says, voice rising in pitch. “For god’s sake and the two of you are expected to be the best.”

The mood from the car has evaporated, and the wolf has stopped hiding his head. “We were captured,” Napoleon says smoothly. “Even if we weren’t, the whole thing was a set-up. There were no back-ups.”

Waverly’s face has gone the colour of the Russian flag, complete with the yellow. “I don’t care!”

“He was touching inappropriately,” Illya growls, his fingers twitching. “I do not stand for that.”

Waverly raises an eyebrow. “Solo should be used to that by now, and if he isn’t, well then god help us all.”

The words hit Illya like a bullet, touching every exposed nerve that he has. He can’t think over the blood rushing in his ears. “Don’t you say that,” he bites out menacingly, rising to his full height. “U.N.C.L.E was supposed to be different from CIA, from KGB. Now it seems I just traded one ruthless thing for another.”

Waverly seems to bite his tongue in his frustration. To both his and Illya’s surprise, it is Napoleon who steps in. “It’s alright, but we didn’t have a choice with Julian. That man was, to put it lightly, insane and deranged. You would not have gotten anything out from him.”

Waverly visibly takes a deep breath and deflates. “You’re both going back to New York. Your next mission, should I even choose to give it to you, will be in two weeks. Until then, gentlemen,” he sighs and gets into his Chrysler, the car leaving Napoleon and Illya in a cloud of dust.

Napoleon lets out a small smile at the back of the car. “I like him more than Sanders,” he says, almost wistfully. “It is rather refreshing.”

Ilya’s surprised at that, and he stops in his tracks. “He wasn’t very nice.”

“Sanders was on occasion, mean, and most of the time downright evil,” Napoleon laughs, before gesturing to the river. “Want to take a walk?”

Illya hesitates for a moment before slowly shuffling over to Napoleon’s side. “I would’ve killed him.”

Napoleon pats his shoulder, and then, after a moment of deliberation, he takes Illya’s hands and interlaces their fingers. “I know you would’ve,” he says, and starts to walk. “That’s why I stepped in.”

Illya stares at their joined hands, before deciding it was actually quite alright. “God only knows what I’d be without you,” he mumbles, red-faced, but it’s worth it to hear Napoleon’s laughter, a symphony all on its own.

“God only knows what I’d be without you too,” Napoleon grins, a white flash on a dark night.

“Probably missing head,” Illya deadpans. “Or a puddle of blood.”

“You’d be floating on a lake.”

“I like this more.”

It’s a while before Napoleon replies. “Me too,” he says, and he says it like a promise. “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> God Only Knows is an actual song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Only_Knows
> 
> A lot of 1960s research went into this holy.
> 
> The Greek myth is an actual thing, one of my favorites (there are many different versions, as are usually the case with myths): http://mythman.com/pygmal.html
> 
> thanks for reading!


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